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SECESSION: 



1 ]Sr THE B" U T U R 111 



PHILADKLPHIA: 

KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, No. (J07 SANSOM STREKT. 
1862 






Book_____.iVi 






SECESSION: 



¥^1 



Ilsr THE FUTURE. 







P H I L A D P: L P H I A : 

KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, No. 607 SANSOM STREET. 
1862. 



■ Z 






Jwfl^ion: ia i 




The future of our country is regarded as uncertain. 
In this it resembles, with some features peculiar to 
itself, every other future. AMio can foretell precisely 
to-day what to-morrow may bring forth in the com- 
monest routine of individual life, or ordinary national 
progress] No one can control his fate, or even per- 
ceive its development. The mind is variously in- 
fluenced, according to its own innate tendencies, as well 
as by outward circumstances ; and it contemplates 
days to come, as sure in prospective existence, but 
vaguely defined in character and incident. Under the 
influence of these sentiments we propose to devote a 
few pages to a consideration of the probable state of 
the nation in the coming time. Enough is known for 
the proposed inquiry, although not to resolve the problem 
with mathematical exactitude, yet to reach a gratifying- 
assurance of the truth. Speaking in a logical sense, 
the premises are broad enough for a satisfactory con- 
clusion. The subject is attended with difficulty suffi- 
cient to warn us of the necessity of patient inquiry and 
untiring activitv. It cannot be an unwelcome task to 



secession: in the future. 



watch the progress, and reason upon the end of the 
rebelUon, and it is a becoming. duty to look if possible 
into the consequences, whether fatal or fortunate, that 
may ensue — beyond. 

There are many phases in the strife. Still it is 
fairly to be inferred that the Union cause will triumph. 
Some of the reasons for entertaining these hopes are 
submitted for candid consideration. No ground exists 
for apprehension that any thing has occurred or is 
likely to occur to occasion a serious doubt, much less 
to infuse a symptom of despair. Certainly there is 
nothing in the present proofs of skill in commanding 
officers, or bravery among the troops from various parts 
of the country and from abroad, who vie with each 
other in heroic emulation to triumph by land and 
water, that can fail to brighten the prospects, pros 
perity or glory of the nation. 

]Many of the evils to be dreaded arise from an abuse 
or forgetfulness of the present and consequent inter- 
ference with the preparations required for the future. 
All that is fitting is at hand and heartily requires 
a befitting use. Let us go on and we shall prosper. 
The present and the future require only an accomplish- 
ment of what is doing well, in the direct line of duty. 
Nothing is so plain and broad as this onward path. 
Error consists in turning to the riglit hand or the left. 
Danger arises from listening to idle suggestions of 
individual ambition, which puts aside what the public 
good earnestly requires, and leads to unbecoming per- 



SECESSION : IN THE FUTURE. O 

sonal controversy and abuse on the floors of Congress, 
and worse than idle discussions of what are not even 
collateral issues, or practical results. A great cause is 
before us. A great rebellion is to be defeated. This 
should absorb as it deserves and should receive universal 
and devoted attention to the entire exclusion of matter 
that is independent, consisting too often of mischievous 
intermeddling with things that should now be let alone. 
Quite enough is presented for action in the actual 
promptings of duty. It may be obstructed by the 
indulgence of individual caprice, or topics of lamiliar 
favor and preference. Pride and passion must give 
way to patriotism. A love of personal distinction and 
display must yield to a love of country. No ambition 
to lead should be indulged when all stand in effect 
shoulder to shoulder in the magnanimous and united 
effort to protect, defend, and preserve the common 
good. 

Slavery in its various hues is a frequent theme. 
Sometimes it has a remote possible bearing upon the 
points now a issue, but rarely, if ever, a necessary or 
useful one. It is to a greater or less extent at this 
time, a mischievous interference with ^ital affairs. 
But it is tempting, as it afibrds a ready field for decla- 
mation, and is sure to reflect the sentiments of a 
party which is the most violent of all. AMiether the 
particular object be right or wrong, it is for the most 
part altogether out of place. Yet it may be that under 
other circumstances, and at a proper season, it would 



6 SECESSION : IN THE FUTURE. 

not be pernicious. The objection here is that it divides 
where there ought to be harmony ; and, to use a legis- 
lative phrase, it is not in order. Why, for example, 
should Congress at this precious time have been occupied 
in discussing tlie question of recognizing the independ- 
ent existence of Hayti and Liberia I In the abstract the 
recognition would be right enough. It has slumbered, 
however, tranquilly for many years, and would not have 
suffered from prolonged repose. It was indeed an 
affair of Executive consideration. The constitutional 
power is conferred on the President, and he has not 
thought fit to exercise it now, or formerly, in this 
behalf Like most things with a tinge of African blood 
in them, it is a fire-brand, and was thrown as such 
among combustible materials. It was opposed, partly, 
on the ground that it involved a probability of a man 
of color being sent as minister from one or other of 
those governments. More than one member expressed 
his willingness to receive black ministers. AVithout 
such intimation there coidd have been little danger of 
what could only be regarded as a social calamity. In 
England the recognition was made many years ago ; 
but tlie dark incident has never presented itself The 
Republic of Liberia Avas some time since, and probably 
still is, represented by ]\Ir. Ilalston, a native of Phila- 
delphia, residing in Ijondon. Social equality between 
the two races is not to be desired, and is practically 
out of the question. Persons of African blood are not 
even citizens of Pennsylvania ; and yet that State led 



SECESSION: IN THE FUTURE. 7 

the way in tlie career of emancipation. The elective 
•franchise is confined by the Constitution to white free- 
men alone. (Art. TIT., Sec. 1.) If the capital error 
should be conmiitted under such circumstances of send- 
ing a negro, it is presumed that a reception of him 
would be declined without fear of giving offence. 

Recognition of Liberia has long been wished for, and 
urged upon the government. A petition to that effect 
has lately been published, which is a mere copy of the 
one presented when Mr. Fillmore exercised the func- 
tions of President. It was supported by a special dele- 
gation from the Pennsyhania Colonization Society. 
Mr. Webster, then Secretary of State, was fa"s-orable to 
it. The head of the Government, deeming, as was 
supposed, the moment not propitious, made no move- 
ment in its favor, and the object was not attained. 
They, who at that time pressed the measure, and took 
active stpps for its promotion, have undergone no 
change of sentiment : but they deem it unwise to suffer 
any thing not directly needful to the immediate crisis, 
and therefore an interference, to be pursued. Let us 
effectually put down rebellion. When that vital end 
is accomplished, a more fitting opportunity would be 
presented for promoting what at the utmost is only 
collateral, and even in that respect out of time. 

In devoting every care and exertion to the great 
contest in which we are engaged, the present and the 
future are honorably provided for. The eye of the 
mind like that of the body sees nothing clearly at a 



8 SECESSION : IX THE FUTURE. 

distance. It looks to what is to happen as bright or 
dark; and the imagination is gratified by a supposed 
store of fruitful enjoyment, or filled with dismay at the 
dread of fancied distress. Hope is itself one of the 
richest of man's actual possessions. It partakes largely 
of enjoyment. Life is rarely to be found without it. 
Disappointments must have come in close and frequent 
succession before we learn that the absence of it leaves 
the world without, perhaps, its dearest charm, and 
refuse — even hesitate — to listen to its fiattering tale. 
A large supply of hope for the future fortunes of the 
country consists in the fact, and the consciousness, that 
our cause is just. This is entitled to a front position 
in the list of motives for reliance on success. Without 
a good cause, skill in conduct is a dependence neither 
worthy of confidence nor entitled to respect. AYith it 
we are thrice armed. Never was a forbearing, forgiv- 
ing and generous people so wickedly assailed. Never 
was civil war so wantonly or cruelly provoked. After 
submitting patiently to insult and outrage, until sub- 
missive patience ceased to be a virtue, the North was 
compelled to resort to defence ; wliich was not slow to 
assume the shape of active resistance. That result was 
embraced with an earnestness unexpected to rebellion, 
and it soon reached an energy to restrain violence and 
repel wrong. In all this, it has only exhibited a neces- 
sity incident to the condition in which it was placed : 
a necessity involving, as the other branch of the alter- 
native, loss of character, and an immense amount of 



secession: in the futuee. 9 

public property, without the chance of redemption, or 
the consolation of sympathy. It was to be expected 
that a contest thus begun should resemble other civil 
wars, which are generally bitter, bloody and relentless. 
The fi'atnim ira, when aroused, is actively vindictive ; 
and it has now been eminently so on one side, and 
uncompromisingly severe on the other. It is not need- 
ful to bring into view the different civil wars that have 
crimsoned the pages of history. They have existed 
often, and almost everywhere ; and fearful as the 
calamity of war abroad and with foreign nations is 
described to be, it is far less so than when it rages at 
home, and especially between parties belonging in ordi- 
nary allegiance to the same government. Lord Wel- 
lington, after the fall of Badajoz, writes to Lord 
Liverpool of the possibility of the French making an 
attempt on England herself, instead of Spain. " Then, 
indeed, would his Majesty's subjects discover what are 
the miseries of war, of which, by the blessing of God, 
they have hitherto had no knowledge ; and the culti- 
vation, the beauty and the prosperity of the country, 
and tlie virtue and happiness of its inhabitants, would 
be destroyed, whatever might be the result of the mili- 
tary operations. God forbid, that I shoidd be a wit- 
ness, much less an actor in the scene ! " \^oltaire 
writes, " War at its termination makes the conqueror 
as poor as the conquered. It is a gulf in which all the 
canals of abundance are lost." Such are its ordinary 
consequences according to a great soldier, and in the 



10 SECESSION : IN THE FUTURE, 

judgment of a French philosopher, whose country is 
the most helhgerent of modern nations. A leading 
literary journal of to-day thus describes some of the 
features of the War of the Roses, among our ancestors : 
" The wholesale beheading, hanging, and quartering, 
that took place after each alternation of fortune during 
the Yorkist and Lancastrian battles, were only exceeded 
in atrocity by the vindictive and insulting butcheries of 
prisoners perpetrated on the field. It has been com- 
puted that not fewer than eighty princes of the blood 
died deaths of violence during these wars ; and the 
ancient nobility would have been well nigh extinguished 
altogether, had the struggle been prolonged. Edward 
the Fourth's first Parliament included in one act of 
attainder, Henry VI., Queen Margaret, their son Ed- 
ward, the Dukes of Somerset and Exeter, the Earls of 
Xorthumberland and Devon, Wiltshire and Pembroke, 
Viscount Beaumont, Lords Ross, Neville, Rougemont, 
Dacre and Hungerfield, with one hundred and thirty- 
eight knights, priests and esquires, who were one and 
all adjudged to suffer all tlie penalties of treason." 
Edinhurg Review, April, 1862. 

Tlicre can be little doubt that tlie picture above 
exhibited applies essentially to the course of the 
Southern rebcUionists of- 1861-2, and to their side 
alone. Xo atrocity, in act or deed, has been justly 
imputed to the Union leaders. Sometimes a public 
order or proclamation has been wilfully misconstrued or 
falsified, but a perpetration of cruelty has not been! 



SECESSION: IX THE FUTURE. 11 

found, or even a threat of it. A prominent rebel com- 
mander affected to impute to an Union officer the 
inscription of " beauty and booty " on his colors, but he 
was soon shamed into the disavowal of the slander, by 
claiming to have made the charge metaphorically, and 
not in literal assertion of the fact. INlore recently, 
when some of the women of Xew Orleans were de- 
servedly threatened with imprisonment, the country 
resounded with the assertion that they were to be given 
over to personal violence. These have been subtle 
perversions of the truth, containing the essence of a 
lie, which consists in the intention to deceive. Daily 
publications are made, either simply false for the occa- 
sion, out of nothing, or in direct and positive denial of 
what is known to be true. 

The Ghost of the last mentioned, proclamation has 
recently (16th June) made its appearance in the great 
sanhedrim of our parent Country. This tribunal in 
addition to the powers of the ancient supreme court of 
that name which adjudged all civil and religious affairs 
of the Jews, even to the regulation of the calendar, 
assumes to clothe itself with fancied authority over 
alien christian people at a distance. Like other appari- 
tions of the departed, it seems to have frightened the 
peers quite from their propriety. Their invocation is a 
hideous caricature, Not a word is found even in their 
version of the original, of violence, perpetrated or 
threatened : nor arc the parties of whom it complains 
" ladies" in any proper sense. The mischievous women, 



12 • secession: in tbe futuke. 

whose gross misconduct is ignorantly forgotten or 
intrusively forgiven, by the aristocratic branch of an 
unfriendly government, are not alluded to as being 
among the refined part of the sex, but only as calling 
themselves so. The worst penalty threatened, 'if any, is 
imprisonment, which surely they richly merit. If the 
discipline of the New Orleans jail resembles that of 
other places of confinement, separation of tlie sexes is 
as perfect as if they were in a convent, and violent 
treatment is impossible. The deference and respect 
for women which travellers impute with something like 
reproach to our people, are strangely contrasted with 
the opposite conduct in England. AVithout any desire 
to retaliate accusation, however appropriate, we would 
refer the " Lords temporal" to a publication made a day 
or two ago in a New York paper, exhibiting a long 
catalogue of acts of British cruelty and violence. 

Notices of a like kind were taken in the House of 
Commons, with those above referred to in the House of 
Lords. In any view of these afi'airs it must be obvious 
that haste and bad temper have marked the proceedings 
of the two houses of Parliament. Their course was not 
prompted by any suggestion of Lord Lyons, who does 
not appear to have shown official off"ence in his inter- 
course with the government of the United States or his 
own. The worst way to obtain correction (if needful) 
of what was thought wi'ong, was to treat it as they have. 
As the thing now stands, we have the reason to com 
plain. 



SECESSION: IN THE FUTURE. 13 

A second argument in flivor of Union success is 
found in the cruelty constantly indulged by the rebel 
armies and individuals ; and a third in those habitual 
falsehoods of their speech, pen, and press. Each was 
distinctly foretold by the pledges of early secessionists, 
and each lias been confirmed in histor)^ The one was 
preached by an Ex-Governor of Virginia, in his avowal 
of blood-thirstiness and recommendation of wading 
through rivers of blood. The other was indicated in 
the conspiracy of fourteen Members of Congress to 
tear in pieces the Constitution, when their lips were 
still moist with the oath they had recently taken, by 
which, according to law, di^■ine and human, they were 
" bound" to support it. (Art. YI.) 

It seems to be believed that women are among the 
most frantic of secessionists. It is not easy to account 
for this infatuation, unless upon the rule which Homer 
puts into the lips of his leading hero, that 

" When to ill her mind 

Is turned, all hell contains no fouler fiend." 

A lightness of spirits often exposes a woman to be car- 
ried away by the first breath of commotion. Mature 
refiection is not a common property of the sex; and 
excitement is apt to be greater in the cause of novelty, 
than in support of an established and regular order 
of things. Patient husbands liave, in many instances, 
been sadly influenced by importunate wives, to the 
regret of their friends and their own repentance. 

An opposite tendency is found in that estimable class 



14 SECESSION: IN THE FUTURE. 

of men, the clergy. At the North, the hest proofe of 
loyalty have come from them, and their prayers are 
offered to Heaven that they who war against the con- 
stituted authorities of the land, may be shown the error 
of their way. Even at the South, although one Bishop 
has buckled on his armor, yet his course is not ap- 
proved. Another Bishop, recently deceased, is under- 
stood to have declared himself at first favorable to the 
Union. E^dl example and contact may have disposed 
him to utter subsequently, other sentiments, which are 
reported at the close of life. 

An unrighteous cause, wickedly canied on, can 
scarcely prosper; while arms manfidly taken up in 
support of justice and defence of right, must not fliil. 
These two positions, each suited to sustain the other, 
may be received as a fourth inducement for liope of 
final success. The foreign world does not yet perceive 
the real merits of the controversy or the questions 
seriously at issue. It clings to the idea, that a mere 
difference as to the liglits of voluntary and peaceful 
separation, di\ides the parties. Even under this volun- 
tary delusioi], it lias, at length, opened its eyes to the 
state of the war and the chances of success. A British 
Journal published in Now York, having at first sternly 
inclined against the North, recently expresses itself in 
a different tone. Among several strong expressions, it 
says : " There must be something wonderfully cohesive 
in the Southern cause, if it can stand such repeated 
reverses as it has sustained of late, and await unfiinch- 



SECESSION : IN THE FUTURE. 15 

ingly the new levies that spring up to snpply vacancies." 
(Albion, June 7.) The London Star, too, (May 29th,) 
says, " If Sir liawrence Palk would point out to his 
friends and tlie public generally, how utterly unde- 
serving of sympathy are those who have made wanton 
and spiteful destruction of property a part of their 
system of warfare, he might help to banish some of 
the irrational and discreditable feeling w^hich has 
converted a certain class of Englishmen into partizans 
of the South." 

" The Illustrated London News," of May 31st, 1862. 
has an editorial beginning thus: "Victories, such as 
they are, but at all events successive occupations of 
positions lately held by the Confederates, are reported 
by every American mail, and there seems little ground 
to doubt that the cause of the South is, in a military 
point of view, hopeless. The Confederates are pressed 
at all points by the enormous forces opposed to them, 
and whether they gain a battle here, or repulse an 
attack there, such items will go for nothing in the 
general account." 

The allusion made in the last quotation, to the rebels 
gaining a battle here or repulsing an attack there, is 
not insignificant, and should receive serious notice. 
They are constantly on the watch for small affairs, 
which appear to be their special vocation. Teamsters 
are assailed; workmen butchered; bridges burned; 
passenger trains fired into. Advantages, seemingly 
small in each instance, are thus gained, which are more 



16 SECESSION: IN THE FUTURE. 

or less destructive. This oii2rlit not to be. It argues 
supineness in an army which succeeds on larger occa- 
sions. Surely, protection is a duty and not a difficulty. 
"Attention" is the first word of military command. 
The enemy is furnished too often by the want of it, 
not only with an opportunity of boasting, in which he 
excels, but of an aggregate of small successes, which 
can be, and ought to be prevented. 

These remarks of an intelligent foreign press, will 
serve to furnish the fifth of our reasons for hope, and 
that not the smallest in value. If the developments of 
the rebellion in its progress prove nothing else, they 
will, at least, have shown the liigh comparative merits 
of the non-cotton growing States. Intellectual cultiva- 
tion and care, have always been more successful among 
them. By their fruits you may know them. Greater 
capacity for war, and mental and bodily faculties to 
exercise it, have been always the boast of the South, 
and as in many other particulars they have been left to 
enjoy the fancied consequence. The pride of Southern 
chivalry has been heretofore inflamed into extravagant 
self-esteem. This was almost contagious in its influ- 
ence, although somewhat remote in its display. Even 
liere, practical conviction has only of late been so often 
brought home as to dispel doubt. If once matter of 
too easy favorable opinion, the truth is now made clear 
by facts. Many instances have occurred in which cold 
steel or other not less sharp and stubborn testimony, 
has been brouijht to bear with conclusive clearness and 



SECESSION: IN THE FUTURE. 17 

almost daily avowal. It may now fliiiiy challenge dis- 
proof for the bayonet and the pen. 

After all that has happened, credit cannot be with- 
held from the relations of a New York traveler in the 
Slave States. These were published by him in the year 
1856, in a volume of more than seven hundred pages, 
entitled " A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, with 
Remarks on their Economy. By Frederick Law 
Olmsted." They were set down by many as the effect 
in a great degree of prejudice; and they were regarded 
as either positively erroneous, or at least as colouring 
much too highly, faults which the present rebellion has 
shown to be faithfully described. In the preface, pre- 
pared of course after the book was completed, he speaks 
of having found frequent occasion for " growling" 
among " the notoriously careless, make-shift, imper- 
sistent people of the South." 

He speaks of the " gasconading mountebank who 
was elected Governor" of Virginia. A desire to sepa- 
rate from the Union had long been felt. " Circulars are 
sent to the other slave States, to coax or shame them 
into joining South Carolina in seceding from tlie hate- 
ful connection with States, which, purely because they 
are disposed to be consistently democratic, are hated 
and despised by her rulers." p. 500. "The absurd 
State and sectional pride of the South Carolinians ; their 
simple and profound contempt for everything foreign, 
except despotism ; their scornful hatred especially, of 

all honestly democratic States, and of everything that 

2 



18 secession: in the future. 

proceeds from them; the ridiculous cockerel-Hke man- 
ner in which they swell, strut, bluster and bully in 
their Confederate relations, is so trite a subject of 
amusement at the North that I can only allude to it as 
affording another evidence of a decayed and stultified 
people. In this particular, they are hardly surpassed 
by the most bigoted old Turks, or the most interior 
mandarins of the Yellow Dragon." p. 520. " There 
is one great evil hanging over the Southern Slave 
States, destroying domestic happiness and the peace of 
thousands. It is summed up in the single word — 
amalgamation.''' p. 601. Quoting Mrs. Douglas, a Vir- 
ginia woman, who was tried convicted and punished 
for teaching a number of slaves to read ; and she writes 
from jail. 

Too much space is given to this author. One more 
quotation is necessary, on the subject of education. 
" How general is that intelligence which has made 
Georgia ' the Banner State of the South 1' Of the 
free native population of Georgia, according to the 
census returns, one in nine and a-half, on an average, 
are without the smallest rudiments of school education 
(cannot read or write). In Maine, which among the 
old free States compares most closely with Georgia, in 
density of population, (that of one being sixteen, the 
other fifteen to square mile,) the proportion is one in 
two hundred and forty-one. With other free States, a 
comparison would be still more unfavorable to the 
Georgia experiment." 



SECESSION : IN THE FUTURE. 19 

It is an agreeable circumstance that the author who 
has thus described men and things as they have always 
existed, although not generally understood, is now 
performing patriotic duty at the " White House," as it 
is called. He has an efficient and prominent position 
in the Sanitary Commission and renders constant service 
on land and on water. 

It might well be supposed that nothing was wanted 
to convince the most extreme of secessionists of the 
deep downfall of their cause, beyond the actual com- 
parison of the positions into which the two different 
parts of the country are found after not much more 
than a twelve months struggle. These in their essen- 
tial features have been brought about mainly by 
secession. The one, is desolate and impoverished, 
without money or commerce or even productive agri- 
culture, and even its peculiar property is held by a 
precarious and uncertain tenure. Every public demon- 
stration of prosperity is found in the other. Funds 
which are regarded as the barometer of national 
prosperity are elevated, and daily looking higher. 
Disappointment soon followed the outbreak of an 
organized attempt at revolution. Every thing was 
expected to succeed almost perhaps without an effort. 
The first movements were scarcely matter of surprise, 
and tbey certainly did not appear to fail. This was not 
strange on either side. One was prepared, the other 
was taken unprovided. Encouragement and excitement 
from seeming success, had no corresponding influence 



20 SECESSION: IN THE FUTURE. 

of despondency among the Avell disposed. They felt 
only, that no reliance could be placed on the justice or 
virtue of their foes, and that self-dependence must be 
accompanied by manly and universal exertion. The 
thought was father to the deed. The spirit and the 
flesh came together to the conflict. A people that 
achieved their independence with a handful of armed 
men, and carried on a subsequent war with the same 
powerful country, not much more numerously organ- 
ized, exhibits an army not often surpassed in numbers 
since the days of Xerxes. The London Times, calls 
the war, the greatest of our age. The day of sudden 
outbreak soon passed, and a patriot people, feeling their 
power and knowing their duty, rallied to the rescue. 
An enemy defeated almost daily, and driven to the 
borders of despair, still professes to cling to a hope that 
comes to all, while it can scarcely be blind to a lower 
depth in the lowest deep which they have been forced 
to fathom. As far as can be judged from rancorous 
expressions and bloody threats, mingled with the occa- 
sional echoes of former boastings, the abatement in the 
commanders of thinned ranks of reluctant recruits, is in 
power and not in will. 

If our hopes of success are well sustained by the 
suggestions which have been submitted, and the 
glorious cause of the Union shall be triumphant, 
there is still in the distant- prospect something beyond, 
which must not be overlooked. Since the attack upon 
Fort Sumter, and the unwept departure of the admin- 



SECESSION: IN THE FUTURE. 21 

istration that refused to give it succor, all has been 
asritation. To this there must be an end. In the 
season that shall ensue, events now present, and those 
that are past may become a tale that is told. What 
are then to be the several conditions of a great country 
heretofore united ? The happiest result would be if 
it were possible, that the former state of things should 
be restored in harmony not dissembled and actual 
peace. This would require an effort of returning 
reason like the cure of insanity, on the part of the 
rebellionists. It would be very like submission, but 
there is no midway. The word has nothing disrepu- 
table when the thing exists. If it could be so con- 
sidered, there are precedents enough to take away 
particular reproach. In the course of the conflict 
there have been not a few unconditional surrenders, 
one of them of great magnitude including some fifteen 
thousand men under arms. When an antagonist 
proves to be so greatly the stronger and the better, 
mere surrender becomes an act of necessity and not of 
choice, and necessity knows no law even of shame. 
Such must probably be the end which crowns the 
work. The Northern people have proved their vitality 
in every particular, and have made every sort of de- 
monstration of it in action and effect. Arms are 
triumphant and men and money are abundant. State 
funds and incorporated bodies, and the Federal govern- 
ment — manifest in their various stocks, which are 
always a mark of credit or the reverse — a condition 



22 SECESSION : in the futuke. 

surpassing what has been known at least since the 
troubles began. A like criterion would prove a melan- 
choly test elsewhere. Still victors and vanquished may 
perhaps melt into one common mass of prosperous 
elements rendered dearly welcome by reflections on the 
past, contentment with the present and anticipations 
of the future. One portion would continue to culti- 
vate its commerce and manufactures for the common 
benefit, and the other would resume its partially aban- 
doned successful growth of cotton for the comfortable 
clothing of all. Each would be benefitted by the 
prosperity of the other, and a long course of united hap- 
piness might be looked for, by a nation once again the 
envy of the world. Such a consummation must be 
regarded as almost impracticable in the nature of 
things, and is not to be seriously contemplated among 
the pleasing visions of reasonable hope. It would 
require a miracle. There, is generosity to forgive a 
subdued enemy on the one side ; but there is at present 
neither conscience to repent, nor justice and means 
on the other to restore what is wrongfully withheld, 
and to indemnify for what is lost. 

There is an aspect which is rendered not altogether 
improbable by the overweening attention that slavery 
receives. This, the President in his interview with a 
committee of " Progressive Friends" declared to be, 
next to office-seeking, the most troublesome subject." 
If all of the States where slavery exists arc to form a 
separate community, or each to be excluded from the 



SECESSION: IN THE FUTURE. 23 

proper government of the nation, without any excep- 
tion, it would be a grievous calamity. In the heart 
of several of them there is undiminished loyalty. 
Citizens of the United States residing in different 
border States are true to the Union, The bond of 
fellowship binding them to the North could not be 
broken without mutual regret and serious misfortune. 
If left to exercise their proper reflection, they will 
judge rightly, for their friends and neighbors. Mea- 
sures should not be adopted under the influence of 
mistaken zeal, or duties urged foreign to the actual 
question, which might weaken their attachment, or 
possibly alienate them from us, A common happiness 
is in reserve for both together. At this moment some 
of the best men actively engaged in the cause of 
patriotism are of those border States, Their value is 
inestimable. To forfeit their attachment or co-opera- 
tion in the great effort to put down rebellion, would 
be unwise and unjust. Slavery in almost all its 
aspects might be permitted to abide its time and give 
way to pressing claims which admit no difference of 
opinion or action. Sufficient for the day is the evil 
thereof. 

Or must the fatal end of mistaken secession be at 
last mere inglorious defeat ? It cannot be consoled by 
the sense of lands wasted, and cities burned by their 
once proud proprietors — slaves running away in count- 
less numbers, and leaving no substantial equivalent — 
men destroyed, or, what is scarcely better destroying 



24 secession: IX the future. 

their fellow men in daily conflict- — pel'sistence in an 
unequal contest, into the fierce and bloody extremity 
of which they are too often driven by compulsion and 
imprisonment — with nothing to gain from reluctant 
slaughter. If something like peace sooner or later 
should be attained, it may be that peace so called, 
when solitude is the price. They who shall have been 
chiefly instrumental in the fearful strife will carry to 
their graves an unfruitful remorse, leaving to whatever 
posterity may survive, a pervading curse. Evils so 
great will be aggravated by the consciousness that 
they are — self-invited — self-inflicted — self- punished — 
and being suicidal, not self-atoned. 

Can we look in any event for a reformed and tran- 
quil people] The Southern governments, whether 
united or distinct — and whether poptdar as would be 
most natural — or monarchical according to what has 
been charged, and perhaps admitted in one instance at 
least — whether independent or territorial — will soon or 
late discover that the power ruling and the people 
ruled, must have this chief end in view — the public 
welfare, foreshadowed by the public will. The ways 
of Providence are inscrutable: but it has seldom 
doomed to utter destruction even the least deserving. 
Sodom and Gomorrah are exceptions in the history of 
mankind. 

1862, June 20th. . 



LB S '12 



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